MARTIN O’Neill hopes Villa’s painstaking pre-season planning is not dented after just 45 minutes when the Premier League campaign kicks off against West Ham next weekend.

O’Neill was left questioning the claret and blues’ preparations a year ago when they disappointingly lost their opening league game to Wigan just weeks after winning the Peace Cup.

The Villa boss is still hurt that a small section of the Villa Park faithful chose to boo his team off at half-time in the 2-0 defeat – only three quarters of an hour into the new season.

But Villa bounced back to win their next four league games against Liverpool, Fulham, Blues and Portsmouth and lay the foundations for a successful season.

Even so, O’Neill is anxious to avoid a repeat performance of the Wigan woes – and their early Europa League exit to Rapid Vienna – this time around.

Villa kept faith with their late July/early August sunshine break by replicating last summer’s Peace Cup trip to Spain with the Guadiana Cup in Portugal.

“Last year we were involved in the Peace Cup which we won and there was a lot of prize money for that,” said O’Neill.

“It was out in the south of Spain and it was very warm indeed – a bit like Portugal.

“Really you couldn’t have asked for much more preparation and yet when we started the season we lost the opening game and we wondered whether the preparation had been right or wrong.

“But, luckily, we won the next four games so from that viewpoint it was fine.

“It’s what you try to get out of it, it’s what you make of it. I’ve been involved both as a manager and a player with pretty useless pre-seasons, then you open up and everything goes well for you and vice versa.” O’Neill has several injury worries ahead of next Saturday’s opener against West Ham after a clutch of casualties picked up pre-season knocks.

Calf, hamstring and knee problems to James Collins, Carlos Cuellar and Curtis Davies have left Villa’s defence creaking, while James Milner (back) and Ashley Young (knee) are also struggling.

“The idea is to try and get fitness into the players and really try and get through with as few injuries as possible,” added O’Neill.

“That’s the most frustrating thing for a player – to get injured in pre-season.

“But you have to play games to get players, who have had the summer off, fit so you run the risk of injuries.

“Some teams can get through pre-season and find themselves relatively unscathed.”